


Upward Over the Mountain

by storyskein



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Porn, Anxiety, Bellamy!POV, Canon compliant until 3.10, F/M, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, Medical Procedures, Minor Original Character(s), Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, angst first, smut at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 18:52:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6765739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyskein/pseuds/storyskein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year has passed since Bellamy and Clarke returned from defeating ALIE and the City of Light, and they hardly even speak to each other anymore.</p><p>Then Kane sends them on a diplomatic mission to the Delphi Clan. They have some adventures and learn to get used to one another again.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Upward Over the Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I wrote most of this and then decided to switch the tense. So if you see any remainders that's why.  
> 2\. There's a minor medical procedure--stitching--and I am not a medical professional. If I got it wrong, let me know.

Bellamy hadn’t wanted to accompany Clarke as her lead escort to the Delphi Clan. When Kane asked him, Bellamy listed anyone— _Miller, Davis, Sheree_ —that could do the job just as well. Miller was going anyway, why not him? But Kane had insisted, for reasons that Bellamy could guess at. This was the first time that the Sky People were going to visit Delphi, and it was probably a good diplomatic idea to send not only one, but two! heroes from Mount Weather and the City of Light. A bargain deal for a diplomatic mission.

Besides—and this was also unsaid but understood—it would be better if Bellamy was out of camp for awhile. That he was still living had a lot to do with the mercy of TriKru and Indra after bringing down ALIE. But it still made the Grounders and even the Arkers fearful of him. A year had passed since they returned from Polis, and it wasn’t getting any easier.

So that’s how Bellamy found himself saddling Sigrun, the night-black horse gifted to him by the Broadleaf Clan, on a misty May morning. He tossed over the blanket and was hefting the saddle on Sigrun’s back when he spotted Clarke exiting the Hangar with her Mom and Kane. She gave them last minute hugs, then started walking over to where the small party was gathered at the gate. Bellamy was lead guard, but Miller, Monty, Harper, and a new cadet, Rae, were all coming along to escort the people who wanted to migrate from Arkadia and TriKru over into the Delphi lands.

“Ready?” Clarke said, overbright, as she swung onto her own horse, a leggy white mare with gray water-color like splatters. Clarke had called her Crane as a joke at first, but it stuck. 

“As I’ll ever be.” Bellamy shifted his weight on the saddle, found his seat. He and Clarke hadn’t really talked since they arrived back from Polis. He had thought it might be different after they had finally, _finally_ fucking hashed out all of the fucked up shit between them, but that night in the cave seemed only to separate them in some inexplicable way. There was still a chasm between them, one neither of them knew how to cross.

Bellamy forcibly shoved those thoughts aside, hard as it was with her on a horse next to him, looking like an Arthurian princess.

_Shut that shit down, Blake._

He swallowed hard and ignored Clarke’s curious look.

“All right, let’s go!” Bellamy turned and yelled at the group behind him. He, Clarke, and Miller were on horseback. He and Miller would alternate scout duty, while Monty and Harper took turns driving the wagon. Rae was on foot. They had about twenty other people with them, mostly young people and a few couples.

The gate creaked open. Bellamy felt Sigrun move under him, strong and sure, and the morning breeze swirled around him in the muggy air.

+++

“It’s good to be out of camp.”

They were back on the road after stopping for lunch. Bellamy looked over at Clarke. Shafts of yellow sunlight pierced the forest canopy and a bit of light glinted off her hair.

“Yeah,” he nodded. The rest of his words—millions of them—clogged in his throat, like they had since the winter.

Clarke smiled at him, trying to encourage him. He knew that she was trying, that she wanted to reach across this gulf as badly as he did.

Bellamy ignored the fall of her eyes, the crease that crinkled her brow. “It’s my turn to scout. Miller will ride with you now.”

He pressed his knees into Sigrun’s side, urging the horse into a trot. Soon the party was behind him, and it was only him and the trees ahead.

+++

Stars carpeted the inky sky above him.

_Once you lived up there._

It was never not weird to think about that, especially with firm, sun-warmed ground below him, trees whispering above him, red embers hissing from the campfire. To think, not even two years ago, he lived in space.

Bellamy didn’t feel nostalgia for the Ark. Maybe for the moonrise in the East Bay, and the library with its endless books stored on reading pads. He knew that some people did. He sometimes heard the wealthier people who made it down in Alpha Station complain about the ground.

And yeah, sure. Life on the ground was hard. But so was life on the Ark, and the people from Mecha and Factory and Farm Station weren’t so quick to forget that, neither were the few delinquents left.

Looking up at the stars, then, he thought of hugging his mom goodbye. Octavia was already in lock-up, and they wouldn’t have let her come anyway. So it was only him, his mother, Kane, and fucking Shumway.

He remembered how she placed her hand on his face and looked into his eyes. “I’m not afraid, Bellamy,” she whispered. Her black eyes bored into his, steely and unflinching. “Don’t be afraid. Fear is a demon. Remember that.” She leaned down and brushed a dry kiss across his forehead. Then she held him back at arm’s length to take one last look at him.

She didn’t even look at Kane or Shumway as she said, “I’m ready.”

Shumway pressed a button. Aurora walked into the airlock, and the doors snapped shut behind her. She didn’t turn around; she kept her back to them, stood still and stoic. Then Shumway shoved the final lever upwards, and she flew out into space.

Bellamy’s chest squeezed at the memory. In many ways that was the start of…all this. He wouldn’t be at this campsite without that terrible moment at the dance and everything that happened after.

He still didn’t know how to feel about that.

+++

The next three days passed in heat and humidity. They made good time, all young people eager to be out of camp.

On the fourth day, the heat finally forced them to stop in the early afternoon. Sweat ran in streams down Bellamy’s back. Clarke’s mouth was even open, just a bit, panting.

Bellamy looked at her once and glanced away as fast as possible.

“Hey, Miller, Bellamy,” Rae called as she stepped onto the path. “I just went to piss over that way—,” she shrugged her shoulder’s eastward into the forest at _that way_ , “—and about fifty yards further in there was a stream. Looked spring-fed, nice and clear.”

Miller looked at him. “We need the refill. The horses could use a break. Plus…mapping.”

Mapping, Kane’s obsession.

Bellamy squinted to take in the area. Summer grass, green and silky and lush, carpeted the meadow. Trees to the west offered shade and privacy, and best of all, it was flat with no rocks. Practically fucking luxury.

“We should just stop for the night.”

Miller nodded, looking relieved. They might be happy to be out of camp, but it had been a hard ride and there were still three more days before they reached Delphi. “I’ll do one more scouting run—”

“No, I’ll do it.” The thought of being so close to Clarke when all the clothes inevitably began to be discarded in favor of a swim was a bit too much.

Bellamy slid out of his saddle and handed the reins to Miller. “I want to stretch my legs. Besides, Sigrun needs a break,” he said, answering the question in Miller’s eyes. Miller nodded. “I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t make camp until I get back.”

Bellamy walked fast, not looking back, until the group was out of sight. _Fuck it is hot_. He stopped for a moment, took a pull from his canteen, and checked his compass. After about a mile, he started to mark a perimeter around the camp, looking for any sign of highway robbers or stray Grounders. He saw no one. No prints, crushed leaves, broken twigs.

The space of the Ground made Bellamy feel like his very being can finally breathe. There was no space on the Ark. Every bunk was shared, every room occupied. Unless you lived in the spacious quarters of Alpha Station, with its multi-room suites and insulation and carpeting…well, then every conversation could be overheard, every baby’s cry, every moan of an orgasm. Looking back, he has no idea how they kept Octavia a secret, other than she was a preternaturally quiet baby (which makes him scoff, now) and his neighbors didn’t care to know. They had their own problems.

Bellamy walked along the creek-bed as he headed back to camp. The alien green rocks were slick and mottled blue-grey-green water glides over them. Peace settled gently over this place, and reminded him of the fairy stories he used to read from a country called Ireland. Liminal was his favorite word in the sixth grade, and this little stretch of creek and wood just felt… _liminal_.

He heard the camp before he rounded the bend of the creek. Laughter peeled out over the water, Monty teasing Miller, and Ray shrieking _fucking Harper you twat!_ followed by a thunderous _splash!_

A laugh escaped his lips, and a tendril of love unfurled in his chest. Miller, Harper, Monty, and Clarke…they were still here. And he was with them, which was as close as he could get to ensuring that nothing would happen to them. Happiness flickered inside him.

He stopped before the final approach to camp and sniffed himself. Fuck. He needed a bath, and a swim sounded amazing.

Just…not. Not with Clarke there. Sure, it was fucking silly to think that taking his clothes off with 30 other people milling around would be intimate…but for them? It would be.

So he threw off his shirt, unbuckled his belt. He practically had to roll his sweat-soaked pants off his body. But when the cool forest air hit his flushed skin, he moaned. Christ, it felt good. Bellamy threw the clothes into the stream to soak—just as he remembered the flaw in his plan.

He didn’t have a change.

Fuck.

_Too late now, Blake. Enjoy this part, at least._

He waded into the fuckingfreezing water, judged a deep pool ahead of him, and dove in. Gooseflesh covered his body, but it felt amazing. Knowing how to swim now helped, too; Kane had made summer swim lessons mandatory for everyone who was able. Some of the Arkers were terrified, but most adapted well enough.

Bellamy flipped on his back and just floated. Shrieks and splashes from down the creek pierced the summer afternoon, but mostly it was just him and the water and sky above him. Cicadas started to tune up for their evening symphony.

“Bellamy.” Clarke’s voice, soft and light, skipped over his consciousness.

Shit.

He stood up in the water, thankful it came to his waist. She was looking at him with this look, heavy-lidded, eyes dark. She licked her lips, just a little, before snapping her eyes to his.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I was just walking and um…I didn’t want to startle you.”

He smirked at her. Flush crept up her neck and chest. She was clearly disconcerted by finding him naked in the creek, and for a moment, it was just two people attracted to each other.

One naked, though.

And it was all so…pleasant. The breeze whispering in the trees. The liquid sound of water meandering over stones. A woman and a man with desire thrumming between them, hot and languid like a summer day.

And for fucking once Bellamy wanted something pleasant to stay. So he shoved down that shadow that threatened to throttle him, to choke him out of every happiness.

“You didn’t startle me,” he said, working to put ease in his voice. “Why aren’t you swimming with the rest?”

Her arms crossed over her chest, and she turned in the direction of the camp. “I…I don’t know. It feels weird, I guess. I was…”

“Looking for a place you could swim alone?”

Her mouth quirked up. “Well, yeah.”

The moment stretched between them.

“Come in,” Bellamy said finally. “It’s cold, but nice.”

“I…”

She wanted to. It was plain on her face. But she had tried for three days to get him to respond to her, and now that he was, it was throwing her off.

He knew exactly what to do.

“You probably stink, Griffin. Take pity on the rest of us and get in.”

Her mouth formed a perfect O followed by a startled laugh. “You dick, Bellamy! I do not stink.”

“I can smell you from here.”

“Bellamy!”

He grinned, and it was all natural, easy. “Or is something else, Clarke? Are you afraid?”

Her eyebrows flew up. “Afraid?!”

“Sure. Afraid. Chicken.”

“I am not.”

“Then prove it.”

“But…”

“Look, Clarke, if you want to be modest I’ll turn my back.” He made a big show of turning around and covering his eyes. “There. Modest Clarke, who probably never had to go into the communal showers on the Ark.”

“I did too,” Clarke said, a bit stung. Her privilege was a sometimes-sore subject for her, but effective nonetheless, since he then heard the sound of cloth being removed from her skin.

Her feet splashed in the water, and she sucked in a breath at the cold. “Jesus fucking Christ Bellamy Blake you didn’t tell me it was fucking glacial!”

Bellamy loved it when she cussed. She had such a filthy mouth and you could only startle it out of her.

“Can I turn around now?”

The water rippled against his skin, moving away from her and onto him. “Yes. I’m decent.”

He uncovered his eyes and turned to face her. She was paddling about four feet away, and she was anything but decent. Bellamy saw that all of Clarke’s clothes had joined his to soak, including her bra and underwear. Her shoulders were bare and lightly tan. Even in the cold water, Bellamy felt himself stiffening.

“It’s been a long time since I swam. I always remember Octavia and that sea snake.” Clarke glanced around the creek.

“I remember.” He remembered the gaping wound on Octavia, the surge of adrenaline and fear when he realized—when they all realized—Earth was not going to be anything like it had been before, in the books and histories.

“But I saw the head of the spring about a mile north, and we’re so far from the ocean. We’re fine.” It still made all of them a bit nervous, but Grounders told them that those kind of water predators were rare and usually stayed near the ocean. The one that swam up into the creek where Octavia had been bitten was abnormal.

Clarke’s shoulder relaxed. Bellamy loved that Clarke was such a thinker, that you could see her mind overruling her fears.

A comfortable silence enveloped them. The past year had been hard on them both, both busy, both distant, both afraid.

But whatever they had to say would keep. Now was not the time or the place. So they just floated.

And it was so damn pleasant.

+++

Shadows stretched long over the creek when Bellamy heard Miller’s voice from a distance. He picked out his name and a tone of worry.

“We better get back,” Clarke said, sliding her gaze over to him. Bellamy nodded and they waded out of the creek, backs turned to each other again, the strain of the earlier days creeping in. Between the shit of the past and the desire of the present, it was too much.

About an hour earlier Clarke had thought to pull their clothes out of the water and lay them on some bushes to dry. It had been three minutes of torture, three minutes of counting every breath in his body as he tried not to watch her nipples, peaked with the cold water, the curve of her ass, the nip of her waist. If she felt self-conscious at all, she didn’t show it, going about as matter-of-factly as if she had been stitching up a scratch.

Now that the awkwardness returned, that feeling of too much weight between them, but it wasn’t the same as when they rode out of the gates. The edge was gone.

Clarke moved away from him as she slid her still-damp underwear on; he turned his back to her as he pulled on his boxers.

“The pants are a no-go,” Clarke said, humor and…something…sparring in her voice. He turned around to see her holding out his pants, still heavy with water. She stood in front of him in the ultra-serviceable Ark-issue underwear, navy blue, and she shouldn’t look so ridiculously beautiful but she did. The last shafts of orangey-pink setting sun gilded her hair, haloing the fine hairs on her shoulder.

Bellamy cleared his throat. “It’s, ah, okay.” He couldn’t find words. Ever since the past winter words stuck in his throat; it was ridiculous and he hated it. Suddenly the anxiety returned, the uncertainty and heaviness and that clawing feeling in his chest that makes the sky feel like it was closing in on him. He swallowed hard.

“Bellamy.” Clarke’s voice, soft and sure, floated to him. “Come back to me.”

He flicked his eyes up to her, and she stood, not moving, looking at him with…he shied away from _love_ and pivoted to…affection. Affection was safe. He felt affection for a lot of people. It’s safe for Clarke to feel _affection_ for him.

Clarke’s hand moved into the space between them, then stilled, unsure.“Can I touch you?” Her brow is creased and her eyes worried. He wished he could give that to her, to both of them, but.

“No…no. It’s okay. I’m fine. Sorry.” Without even thinking his voice had a hard, defensive edge to it. Clarke didn’t move, but he could see her eyes shying away from him.

Fuck.

“Bellamy!” Harper’s voice carried over the water.

“Shit,” Bellamy said. “I told them not to make camp, and I never went back.”

Clarke turned away from him and started walking. “It’s okay. I’m sure Miller has them gathering firewood and washing clothes. You’re fine.”

“Rae saw you down in the creek,” Miller said, ten minutes later with a glance between him and Clarke. “Figured it must be okay. Anyway, no rain tonight, so everyone just wants to sleep around the campfire. No tents.”

Night stole over the camp. Clusters of people grouped around the two campfires, eating their beans and hard-bread rations. People smiled, laughed, told stories. Monty’s head rested on Miller’s shoulder, and Bellamy smiled when he saw Miller lean down and give Monty a forehead kiss. Some people were working their way towards being okay. It gave him hope. Not for himself, really, but that other people could make it. And that’s what all of this was for.

+++

“The Delphi Clan welcomes you!” Bellamy watched as a team of guards pulled open towering wrought-iron gates. A tall woman stepped out of the Delphi gates, flanked by ten soldiers.

Clarke slid off of Crane and stepped forward to the woman. “I am Clarke of the Sky People. Sent by Marcus Kane, Chancellor of the Sky People, as ambassador.”

“I am Lira,” the woman said. “Ambassador of the Delphi Clan. Trea, our leader, wishes you all to join her at a feast later this evening. Follow me to your quarters.”

Painstakingly tended brick buildings lined the bustling streets. Bellamy couldn’t believe that so much of the city had either been spared or rebuilt. Vegetables and herbs and mini-orchards filled every available space. The heady scent of summer flowers mixed with the city-smells of people and animals and food.

The shopkeepers stared at them as they passed. Lira led them about a half-mile to the other side of the town, to a cluster of old houses on a cul-de-sac, clearly kept in repair after the war.

“There is a livery around the corner,” Lira told them after he and Clarke dismounted. “Jade will keep your horses for a fair price.” Lira looked over the group surrounding the wagons. “There will be a meeting before the feast for whoever wishes to settle in Delphi lands. When you hear the bell-toll five, please follow Matthias to the church.” She nodded to a soldier standing next to her. “He will stay here to answer any questions. We will see you in the feasting hall at bell-toll seven.”

Clarke dipped her head. “Thank you, Lira.”

“Welcome, Clarke and Sky People.” Lira turned around, and nine of the soldiers followed her out of the little cul-de-sac.

+++

A week passed in Delphi. During the day, he and Clarke rode out to accompany the settlers to the villages that had chosen them. They were long days, hot and sweaty under the intensifying May sun, but it felt good to see everyone settled. Every late afternoon as they rode away, they waved at people they probably would never see again.

It was weird seeing people off who came down in the Ark. Who spent generations forming a people choose to be a different people. Bellamy tried not to think about it too much—there would be time enough when they started on the long, lonely trip back. It gave him a sense of loss and a sense hope. He didn’t entirely know what to make of it.

At night, Lira took them around to prominent families and clubs and parties. During the summer months between planting and harvest the people of Delphi were carefree. It’s the perfect time to visit, Lira told them as she applied the artful Delphi social markings to their face. Lira drew stars and comets swirling over Clarke’s cheek with a black, glittery pencil. On Bellamy, she left his face unmarked but smudged black ink on his ears, down to his throat.

“Very fierce,” Clarke said with mock-solemnity.

He smirked back at her. “At least I don’t look like I just got done at a kid’s party on the Ark.”

“I do not!”

She was so easy to rile. From one to ten in a second. “Maybe you do.”

But she didn’t, not really. The barrel fires and starlight caused the markings to shimmer, and as she drank enough of the native grape-liquor that a flush rose so bright Bellamy could see it in the darkness. Combined with her gold hair she didn’t look silly—she looked lovely.

On the last night, they stumbled back into their quarters, drunk and happy and free. Miller and Monty waved them goodnight and tripped into their own room, hands all over each other. Clarke and Bellamy paused for a moment at Bellamy’s door, taking in the sight of their two friends clearly in love.

“Stop watching, you perverts,” Miller said, tossing a disgruntled look over his eye as Monty struggled with the key.

“But you’re so cute,” Clarke protested

Before they can say anything else, the lock opened. Monty pushed it in, face beet red, and Miller shoved him inside and shut the door with a definitive _click_.

“Well, I guess that showed us.” Clarke laughed, drunk, leaning against the wall.

Bellamy smiled in agreement, humming a bit in his throat. He couldn’t seem to form words, a combination of being buzzed and tired and content.

“What was that sound?” Clarke put an ear to his chest. “Did you just _purr_?”

Clarke’s cheek was warm on his chest, one hand on each shoulder to brace her tipsy self. “Do it again,” she whispered.

Bellamy froze. He had one forearm braced on the wall next to his door, the other on his hip. Clarke was very, very drunk, pressed against him, silly and carefree and laughing.

He willed himself to push past his own awkwardness, his own desires, and just…hum. He made the low noise in his throat again.

“Bellamy Blake.” Clarke laughed, delighted. “I never took you for a cat. Purring when you’re happy.” She looked up at him and her eyes turn serious. “Are you happy? This week you’ve seemed…happier. Lighter.”

“Yeah…yeah, Griffin.” He put all of his effort into sounding casual, collected. “I mean. It’s nice to see people settled and to get a week off from Arkadia. Feels good.”

“Do you want to stay here?” Something edged her voice—uncertainty, or anxiety, he couldn’t tell.

“Me? No.” He didn’t, not really. Delphi was nice, beautiful even, but his place would always be with his people. As much as he wished it wasn’t sometimes. But then he had a thought, a thought that disturbed him like a deep water earthquake. “Do you? Want to stay here?”

Clarke took a step back, regarding him. It was a loaded question and she knew it. So much of what lingered between them was because she left, and then she chose to stay with Lexa, and in so many ways left again. It’s created an expanse, two people standing on opposite cliffs with no rope. Two people still bruised bleeding from what happened a year ago.

“No, Bellamy.” Clarke spoke slowly and looked into his eyes as she said it. “No, I want to go home.”

+++

They left Delphi barely four hours later. The trees were just barely emerging out of the shadows of the night, and the last stars still twinkled on the horizon. Harper, Rae, and Monty were on foot, and Miller rode ahead to take the first scouting shift.

By unspoken agreement they went at a leisurely pace. Like Delphi, Arkadia was between planting and harvesting, and though there was always work to be done…it was nice being back together with just them. Part of the original hundred.

On the fourth morning, golden sunlight seeped over the top of the distant mountains. Humid, still air squatted over them.

Bellamy woke up to sweat beading on his brow, his stomach, his thighs. They all slept in various stages of undress, but as the nights grew hotter even the more modest Rae and Monty had shed the last of their clothes before sleeping. Clarke was curled up on a pallet a foot away from him, so close he could reach out and trail a finger down her spine. Ever since the last night in Delphi they slept next to each other, walked next to each other, rode next to each other except when he was out scouting. They didn’t speak, really, except trail shorthand. It wasn’t the time or place, yet. But Bellamy knew that for both of them the physical closeness was a promise.

“It’s going to be a bad one.” Monty handed him a cup of trail coffee fifteen minutes later, a blend of roasted dandelion roots and chicory.

“How long do you think we have?” Bellamy looked up at the sky. It was pure blue now, so brilliant it made him wince.

“It’ll probably hit late afternoon.” Monty had a knack for predicting this kind of stuff.

Bellamy stood up and brushed the biscuit crumbs from his pants, drained the last of the liquid from his camp cup. “Then we’ll ride through lunch, unless we see good shelter. We’ll stop early afternoon at the latest.”

“We saw that group of old cabins…” Monty pulled out the map he kept tucked in his back pocket. He unfolded it, traced his finger along the new landmarks they mapped as they rode along. “Here.”

Marked in Monty’s precise hand was a place the group passed with an old sign that read _Enjoy the Wilderness! Sun Valley Vacation Homes and Resort!_ A few of the old cabins had remained, in various states of disrepair. But it would be good enough for storm shelter on the road.

“Yeah, that looks about five hours or so away. Let’s head out.”

Two hours into the ride and as Bellamy handed Clarke a canteen, he could see angry red skin at the top of her shirt collar, despite her hat. Both of them had chosen to walk for a bit, to stretch their legs and give Harper and Rae a chance to ride.

“Do you have that lotion Nyko gave us? The one that’s supposed to protect your skin?”

“I put it on this morning…” Clarke placed a hand on the back of her neck and instantly pulled away with a grimace. “Shit.” She reached down, fumbled in her pack for a moment and pulled out a small jar.

“Here, let me.”

Clarke stopped walking and handed him the jar. Nyko had taught it to them the previous summer—he swore by it, and it smelled like chamomile and metal. Bellamy dipped in a finger and then rubbed it along her neck.

They had been so careful not to touch each other since that time in the cave, save the drunken night in Delphi, and it should've been casual—but it wasn't. Her skin lit to his finger, and his entire fucking body responded.

“Um. Yeah. There.” He pulled his hand away and hurriedly twisted the lid back on . “I actually have a bandanna…”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, here.” He untied the bandana and doused it with some water. “Tie it around your neck. It’ll keep you cool and your neck won’t burn anymore.”

Clarke blushed pink, even under the flush of heat and sunburn. “Thanks.”

+++

Thunderclouds the color of sickly bruises built in the distance. They ate their midday meal on the go, snagging bites of jerky and dried fruit as they walked.

The sun bore down on them from high in its long summer arc when the humidity broke. The wind kicked up, rustling the long summer grass in the field they were crossing.

“How much further?” Bellamy yelled to Monty over the wind gusting at their back.

“Not far!” Monty pulled out the map and his compass that he had been tracking their path with. “Maybe another two miles? West-south-west. Up that mountain side, remember? We stopped to admire the view and eat lunch.”

“Fuck,” Bellamy sighed.

Monty nodded in agreement. “But I think it’s worth it. It’s less of a mountain and more of a hill.” Monty trying to be rationally comforting always made Bellamy smile, even now. Then Monty turned to the direction of the storm. “I really think we need to, Bellamy.”

Whenever Monty insisted, Bellamy did it. They both knew that.

“All right. We’ll do it.” Bellamy turned to the rest of the group. “Two miles guys. That way,” he said, gesturing toward the low-slung mountain.

The next mile was all gradual uphill through meadowlands. They worked their way through the treeline, which made them all nervous because of lightening, but it really couldn’t be helped. The only thing to do was to move as fast as they could to get to the cabins.

Branches lashed at Bellamy’s face, and the horses spooked as the clanging of the approaching thunder increased. Bellamy once read about Thor, the mighty Viking god, and figured that this must be the sound of him dragging his hammer across the sky.

His thighs were on fire as they struggled up, and up, and up, against the terrain and the wind. His arms ached, and his hands chafed from pulling on Sigrun’s reins. Monty and Harper were in the front with the map, and Clarke and Rare brought up the rear. Bellamy’s willed his mind to reach out and tether both Clarke and Rae to the rest of the party.

The storm broke on them halfway up. Rain pelted at them through the trees and slicked the rocks and pine needles. Thunder cracked behind them and threw the world into a light so bright they all ducked.

Crane reared back her hand legs, staggering once, twice, then the lightning flashed again, and the world inverted. Crane spun and leaped away from Miller, tearing the reins from his grasp, bolting right into Clarke.

Clarke’s screamed, her mouth open, but no sound could compete with the thunder.

And then she was _gone_.

“Fuck! FUCK!” The wind tore the words from Bellamy’s throat. “Miller, take Sigrun!” But Miller already had the reins in his hand.

“Go!” Miller shouted, but Bellamy was already running back down the path, slipping on rock until he completely lost purchase and slid on his ass in the mud. There was a drop-off about fifty feet back from where they were, and in the darkening light and focusing on getting Sigrun up the path he didn’t even notice it. Partially hidden by a thin row of brushy, young trees, but he could see it now in the flashing light.

Skidmarks sliced through the mud, straight over the rock.

“Clarke!” His voice was no match for the thunder but he yelled anyway. “CLARKE!”

“Here!” Harper reached around his waist and typed a rope to it. “This is all we have. I’ve got it tied around that tree. Miller and Monty are on the line.”

Bellamy edged towards the drop off and looked over. It’s not a cliff so much as a steep, rocky slide, and _there_ , just twenty or so feet away, he saw Clarke, hanging on to a tree. “Clarke!”

She looked up, saw him. Blood and scratches covered her face, and a swatch of shirt flapped in the gusts.

Bellamy looked back to the team on the rope. “I’m going down!”

A thick veil of rain poured off the brim of his hat. Branches whipped his face and arms as he used the thin trunks of thicket to guide him to where Clarke was caught.

He counted each step, and it was thirty-five when he finally wrapped his arm around her waist. She trembled against him, in relief and not a little bit of terror.

Bellamy pushed the curls stuck to her face out of the way, cupped her face with his hands. “Are you hurt? Can you climb?”

“No…I don’t think so. And y—yes. Yes.”

“Hold on to me.” He took her hand and closed it around his belt. “Ready?”

Clarke hardened her eyes, and whatever fear was there, fled. “Yes. Let’s go.”

He looked up at Harper and Miller and Monty and Rae at the edge and waved to them. Tension pulled at the line as they added their weight at the top.

It took twice as long to go up. Water flowed over the rocks. Twice the thin trees they were using as leverage cracked under them, sending them skidding backwards. Mud coated their boots, and the sharp edges of the rocks scraped at their hands, Clarke’s stomach.

For the final push upwards, Bellamy put Clark in front of him and shoved her over the edge. Two sets of hands reached down to grab his arms, and Miller and Monty pull him over.

They laid like that for a few seconds, but there was no time to rest. They had to make it to that shelter.

+++

Monty’s route led them right to the cabins half an hour later. They were small buildings arranged in a horseshoe around a central courtyard.

“Over here for Sigrun,” Monty yelled at Bellamy and Miller. Crane had disappeared into the woods. She’d either come back or she wouldn’t, and he couldn’t worry about that now.

Monty and Harper had run ahead ot the cabins once they had seen the first sign, rotted but still legible, indicating that they were on the right path. Bellamy pulled the horse into one of the cabins in the center. It was barely more than a dirt floor and a leaky roof, but it’d keep most of the rain off.

Bellamy and Miller stepped out onto the porch, and his heart squeezed when he saw Clarke properly for the first time. He had draped Clarke in his jacket, but blood and mud spattered the clothing underneath. She blinked at him, wide-eyed and owlish, when he stepped onto the porch. Instinctively, Bellamy moved to her, and too tired to fight anything at this point, she leaned against him.

“There are three good cabins,” Rae said. Her eyes slid to Bellamy and Clarke, then slid away. “We can all sardine into one, or—”

Miller grabbed Monty’s arm. “We’re taking one,” he jerked his chin to indicate the middle one in the right arc.

Monty fastened his chest strap. “See you guys later!” They darted into the rain, running across the courtyard that was quickly coming to resemble a lake.

Harper looked at Bellamy and Clarke, then grabbed Rae’s arm. “We’ll take the one next to Monty and Miller.”

“Do you want to come with us, Clarke?” Rae asks, and received a slap on the arm from Harper.

“Come on.” Harper rolled her eyes and gave a brief smile to Bellamy. “Let’s go before it gets worse.”

An awkward beat passed.

“Do you think they’re trying to tell us something?”

Bellamy grinned, just a bit. “Well, you can sleep with Sigrun, Griffin. But I’m going to the cabin.”

Clarke smirked at him, sassy and quick, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Her face was wan, and he could tell she was exhausted.

“Come on, Clarke.” He settled his pack on her shoulders, then grabbed hers before she could reach for it. “Let’s go to the cabin.”

+++

Their cabin is on the opposite side of the others, three down from the one they used for Sigrun. It was small, a one room affair. What had been a kitchen lined one wall, and the wooden frame of an old couch sat in the middle of the floor. The floor was still good, and the roof only leaked in one corner.

They moved without speaking. Thunder rolled overhead, and the wind screeched into the cracks in the log cabin’s caulking. Bellamy turned on the four small flashlights they had between them, setting them on end. It’s not much light, but enough that he can see Clarke grimacing with each movement.

“Clarke, just sit. I can finish.”

“No, I’m okay.” She forced a smile, but it turned into a wince.

He rolled his eyes. “Clarke, come on. I can roll out some sleeping bags. Please.”

She looked up at that word _please_ , and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

Clarke slumped against the wall, and he tried not to notice the surge of protective feelings he had. His first reaction was defensive after a year of separation: Clarke didn’t need protection; she didn’t need his help.

Except…it was clear that she did. Her face was scratched and muddy, her shirt shredded across the stomach. She’s favored one leg noticeably, and even in the dim light he could tell her dark blood stained her pant leg.

He wanted to offer help. He knew that she needed it. But he didn’t know how to say the words after a year of avoiding each other, avoiding any meaningful conversation, any sort of dependence. The last two weeks eased things between them, but he knew that if he started touching her, if they started something tonight, he would never stop.

_Would that be such a bad thing? You almost lost her, again, tonight._

His chest tightened at that thought, at the memory of looking back and just seeing emptiness where she had been. There, then gone. And he had been with her. The thought shook him so badly he put his head in his hands, just for a moment, just to collect himself.

Bellamy swallowed hard and pushed all of his other feelings down, down, down.

“Where’s your med kit?” His voice was gruff, bossy.

It’s a testament to how bad she felt that she only lifted her head slightly before responding. “It’s in the bottom of my pack.”

He pulled the kit out and sifted through the inside. Bandages, a container of alcohol, some different salves and balms, needle and thread. Stitches, shit. He hadn’t thought about that.

“I feel like I’ve been through a meat grinder.” Clarke leaned her head back against the wall and sighed.

“Close enough.” He kept his voice as light as possible. “Can you take off your jacket and your pants?” At this thought his voice tightened, noticeably, even to himself.

Clarke, even beat up, had the audacity to try and grin at him. “I thought this day would never come.”

And joking, the asshole. But it settled him.

“Just take off your clothes,” he sighed, kneeling next to her. He helped her pull her jacket from her shoulder. She had trouble lifting it, but it wasn’t—thankfully—dislocated. He pulled what remained of her shirt over her head, too. “Where do you hurt?”

“Everywhere.”

“Helpful.”

She shimmied out of her pants, and immediately he could see that she did need stitches. “Jesus, Clarke. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Clarke looked down at the wound on her thigh, several inches above her knee, still leaking blood. “Oh,” she said in a small, tinny voice, and the last thing Bellamy needed was Clarke passing out.

He grabbed for his pack and pulled out some dried fruit. “Eat this while I clean you up. You have to stay with me, Clarke. You’re going to have to tell me how to do this. Besides, I imagine you’ve seen much worse.”

She slowly chewed a dried apple piece. “It’s different when it’s your own flesh.” But her eyes focused again after a few seconds, and the Clarke that Bellamy knew was back. “Get the alcohol. We need to clean everything.”

Clarke washed her face and the lacerations on her chest and stomach with Bellamy’s extra shirt. He washed his hands with water and some soap from the kit, then focused on the wound in her thigh, swabbing at the caked mud and blood surrounding it.

One he actually saw it, it wasn’t as big as he feared. It looked like a stick or something gouged her, but it’s only about an inch and a half across. The problem was that it was dirty, and scrubbing it would probably hurt worse than the actual stitches.

“Here.” He handed her a bottle of moonshine from his pack. “It needs to be scrubbed.”

Clarke took a flashlight and examined the puncture. “Shit, I didn’t even feel it until now. Shock, I guess.” She opened it slightly with the tip of her finger. “You’re right though.”

She opened the bottle, and Bellamy watched in fascination as her throat worked to take several swallows.

“Fuck, Clarke. Not too much, you still have to be alert to tell me what to do.”

Clark shook her head and scrunched her face at the last swallow. “Whew. Fucking napalm. The thing is, Bellamy, there’s not much to it.”

Clarke held the flashlight for him. He could hear her steadying her breath.

She handed him her canteen. “First, try and flush out as much as you can.”

Bellamy poured water over the wound. Blood and grit slid out. Clarke peered down. “Okay, good. Now let’s see if there’s anything else in there.” She held the light closer, and yeah, there was shit deep in there—Bellamy pursed his lips in sympathy because this was going to be fucking terrible for her.

Clarke took a pair of tweezers, doused them in moonshine, and flinching, pulled out some of the bigger debris. Then she handed him a clean cloth from the kit. “You just have to do it.”

Bellamy met her eyes, blue and hazy with exhaustion and moonshine and pain, and hissed out a breath. But it had to be done. He lathered the cloth with some soap and set to it.

She sucked in her breath, sharp, and her fingers gripped futilely at the floor below them. But then she forcibly relaxed, unfurling her hands, drawing in deep breaths.

A few seconds later she stopped him and inspected it. “Okay. Now, stitches.” She hands him the needle and thread. “Do you know how to sew?”

“Yeah. My mom was a seamstress. I helped her.”

“Okay. Similar, except I want you to tie off each stitch, okay? You can do this.”

Bellamy nodded. Just being together makes him feel calmer about everything than he has in…well, more than a year. They were finally doing something together, even if it was this.

Clarke took another swig of moonshine. “I’m ready.”

Bellamy’s hands still shook a little at the beginning, but then Clarke started talking.

“You know…on the Ark…how we taught…women to give birth?” Each phrase was breathless, short.

“How?” He bit his lip and focused on her leg, but let her husky-drunk voice relax him.

“To accept it. You have to accept the pain. Relax into it.”

“Makes sense.”

“If you resist the pain…if you fear it…it only makes it worse.” Clarke let out a shuddering sigh at a particularly hard jab, then waved away his apology. “That’s why all the breathing and low moaning and stuff. Accepting the pain.”

“Does it help?

“Yes. It helps. But you also have to have someone to help you do it.” Bellamy glanced up and she was eyeing him, soft, thoughtful, but also clouded with exhaustion and moonshine. “It’s harder to do it alone.”

He finished the last stitch and tied it off. 

“Last thing,” she laughed darkly, then poured moonshine over the cut, hissing. 

Then she handed him a roll of gauze and some anti-microbial salve. He spread it on, wrapped the gauze around her thigh, tucking it under and knotting it off.

And before he let himself think too much about it, because it felt like the right thing to do, he placed a soft kiss on her knee.

“Bellamy…” Clarke’s voice was like velvet, and he could have easily leaned forward and kissed her right then. And he knew, in that moment, she’d respond to him.

Bellamy cleared his throat. “You need sleep, Clarke.”

“But—”

He smiled at her whine, and anticipation ran hot in his veins. “It’s early, and we’re going to be here all night. We have time.”

Clarke nodded at him, but her eyes weren't unfocused anymore. There was heat there, and a promise. “You’re right. We have time.”

+++

Clarke fell asleep as soon as her head hit her mat. The storm raged on, but it didn’t bother her. Bellamy sat back against a wall with one of the flashlights and a book Lira had given them—a collection of Shakespeare’s plays. The Ark had them on the reading tablets, but when Lira handed him the aged red leather tome, its title embossed in flaking gold, he knew Arkadia had been given a treasure. He opens to his favorite passage between Beatrice and Benedict and tried to read.

But that night in the cave whispered to him.

That night when he and Clarke spoke their sorrows and griefs, their humiliations and their truths. That night they gave each other absolution knowing that the next morning they would be walking, separately, towards almost certain death. There was a desperation between them—they had to say it then or risk never saying it—everything—at all.

Clarke held his hands as he began to speak.

For the first time, ever, he entrusted someone with everything about him. The fear and rage and guilt that clawed at him, from the day that he knew his mother was pregnant with Octavia. He told her about his life on the Ark: how his mom prostituted herself for food and his cadet post, how they never had enough to eat, the close calls when Octavia was almost found. And about that one night and his one decision that cost his mother her life.

Bellamy told her about Gina, with her bright eyes and quick wit, how it shamed him that there wasn’t _more_ between them. Even though Clarke knew already, he told her about the massacre, and about Lincoln.

He buried his head in his hands when it was too much. Clarke reached over and drew circles on his back with her hand as wave after wave of grief crashed over him. Finally, when he stilled beneath her touch, she told him her story.

Clarke’s voice was soft and hesitant as she talked of her time in the woods, alone and afraid and desperate to come home. How she would lurk at the borders of Arkadia, watching the camp, but never able to cross the field from the forest to the gates. She told him of a shame that infected her bones, that compelled her to keep running as far as she could. How she was afraid to come home, to face them, to face _him_.

She wept for Lexa, and Bellamy reached out and enveloped her in his arms. He didn’t understand it, not completely, but Bellamy knew grief, and he knew Clarke. Knew that she loved fiercely and deeply, that she saw the good in everyone, that she was always trying to do her best, and that yet another person she loved was killed in front of her.

They had all lost so much. Parents, lovers, friends—killed in front of them, killed because of them. And somehow they were still here.

Something broke inside him as she settled on his lap. The pretense of the last months fell away, unsustainable after so much honesty. Bellamy knew in that moment that he didn’t just love Clarke. He was in love with her.

Clarke calmed under his touch, finally relaxing into sleep. He didn’t say anything; he couldn’t. If she came back and he didn’t, even if she didn’t feel the same for him, she would blame herself. And he wouldn’t put that on her.

So instead he held her as she slept. He stayed awake knowing that if she didn’t come back, there would never be more of this—the weight of her body in his arms, her breath on his collarbone, the feel of her warmth under his fingers. He tried to burn those sensations on his skin and in his body as the night’s chill seeped in through the cracks.

Clarke had stirred as morning light filtered in through the top of the cave. She blinked up at him, blue eyes full of sleep and trust. Looking at her made him feel like someone had hollowed out his chest.

“I haven’t slept in weeks.” Her voice was rough and bleary. Instead of rising immediately like he thought she would, she sank into his chest more. She pressed one hand against his throat and her ear against his chest. A searing rush of love flooded his veins.

He opened his mouth—and then closed it.

She sat up on his lap and looked at him, eyes searching his face. “It’s time to meet the rest of them.”

He cleared his throat. All the words he wanted to say—and somehow there seemed to be so much he hadn’t said, not even just of his love for her—but they had run out of time. This was it.

Clarke knew. She reached out and traced his cheekbones, ran her fingers along the cuts on his face. They lingered on his lips and her hands stilled on his chest.

Bellamy brought his large hands up to cup her small, delicate face. He needed to feel it just once, and she leaned her forehead against his. They stayed like that for a few minutes, thinking the things that they couldn’t seem to speak.

Their lips met once, slight and hesitant and sad. They broke the kiss and wrapped their arms around each other, each movement in sync, like they always were. He held her, not even bothering to hide the tears slipping down his cheeks, their salt burning his wounds.

Then they parted and walked out of the cave to meet their friends.

+++

He and his team—Monty, Jasper, Miller, Harper, and Raven—had arrived back to Arkadia first. It had never felt more like a cage than those few days he spent pacing the walls. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. One evening he found Raven in Medical. They sat, silent, both consumed with worry and grief.

The call went up during the mid-morning of the fourth day. He was in his bunk, half delirious from worry and not sleeping, and suddenly without remembering how he got there he was in the courtyard watching the team return from Polis.

Kane. Abby. Jasper.

Then Clarke.

She stood outside the gates for a moment and his heart gave a painful lurch. Monty was suddenly next to him, holding his elbow.

“She’ll come in, Bellamy,” Monty whispered to him. “Just give her a moment.”

All the breath in his body left him when she walked through the gates.

+++

Once back in Arkadia, all of those whispers in the darkness seemed to fall away. She seemed lighter. Happier. Clarke, him, and all the remaining hundred would sit around the bar tables after work, or the fire pit, sharing moonshine and laughing and talking.

But whenever they were together, alone, something…else…happened.

Their alchemy became leaden, weighed down by what had happened when they were apart. Clarke couldn’t seem to speak of what happened in the City of Light. She and Octavia would disappear on long walks, or she and Raven would huddle, sitting silent, at the fire pit. He didn’t begrudge her that, not at all—but there was a part of his heart that was warmed by it, and a part of his heart that was jealous of it, too. Why wasn’t that them? After everything, after that night?

They didn’t know how to make it good in Arkadia, how to make it right. After a month of stilted conversations and frustrating arguments about the most pointless shit they just…stopped. By unspoken agreement they took different dinner breaks, avoided the showers at the same time, she left the cantina early and he would come in late. If they had to see each other, like in Council meetings, they left each other’s suggestions untouched.

The silence wasn’t meant to be a year. Just enough time to work out whatever they were supposed to be working out.

But the weeks became months. Summer faded into autumn, and Arkadia exploded into frantic activity at the prospect of the oncoming winter. Bellamy worked the building crew to put up cabins and headed up days-long hunting trips. Clarke left camp for several weeks at a time with Octavia and Kane, visiting the trading posts and making deals with some nearby villages.

It was late September when Arkadia awoke to the first frost, crystalline and blinding in the morning sun. Bellamy was taking a group out to fell a tree and process it for lumber and firewood when Kane appeared by his side.

“Miller is going with you,” Kane said, raising his hand to his eyes to shield against the glare. “As a guard.”

Bellamy hated when Kane buried the lead. It always meant he wanted to have a feelings conversation about something. “What’s going on?”

Kane turned his gaze to Bellamy. “You haven’t been coming to Council meetings.”

“I’m busy.”

Kane sighed. “If you had you’d know that there has been some tension.”

“About what?”

“About you.”

Bellamy turned a bit so Kane wouldn’t see the flush that blotched his cheeks. This wasn’t news to him, but it wasn’t something that anyone spoke to him about, either. Arkadians and Grounders alike whispered as he moved through them—he might have helped rescue them from ALIE, but he was seen as tainted. Everyone else who had taken part in the Grounder massacre, save Pike, was dead now, but Pike’s position as a teacher made it easier for him now.

Kane waited for Bellamy to speak, but when he didn’t say anything, he continued. “So I’m sending Miller out with you. As back up.”

“Fine.” Bellamy bit the word with a clenched jaw. He went out and did his job that day, but he wasn’t able to shrug off the wary, watching eyes any longer. More and more he went out alone, without the approval of the Council, and Kane let him.

+++

Winter came, and they weren’t ready.

Bellamy hunted, set traps, prepared meat, and chopped so much firewood that his fingers bled, then calloused over. There were endless repairs to the Ark. Winter might be a fallow time for the Earth, but the work of survival kept him busy from dawn until the solar-lights shut down at 10 p.m. Even then, alone in the night, he didn’t sleep.

As the snows and ice lingered, people became sick. Medicine ran out. The only interaction he and Clarke had for the whole month of December was her schooling him on how to recognize roots, nuts, anything that he might find that would help them. He’d drop the baskets off, and she’d ask him questions, but they’d always reach the chasm-point that neither one of them knew how to cross.

Words began to stick in Bellamy’s throat during those winter-bright days and hard-cold nights. He’d jolt awake from his dreams, gasping for breath. The slightest interactions with people—especially people he didn’t know well, people who knew him, people with those goddamn wary eyes—left him with a racing pulse.

Bellamy Blake, who had devastated armies, couldn’t even talk to anyone who wasn’t a Delinquent anymore. Even then it was hard. He saw their calculating, concerned looks when he wasn’t watching. No one knew what to do with silent Bellamy.

What they didn’t realize was that he had lived in silence for over a year after Aurora was floated and Octavia was sent to the Sky Box. He knew of nothing but an empty room where there should be people, and silence where there should be noise. That was what he knew before the dropship. Fear for twenty-two years, then just…silence.

Silence became easy. People became hard.

By late January, the entire camp was at half-rations, except the children. There had been shortages on the Ark, but it was different on the ground. For one, people left. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn’t. One frigid February morning, as Bellamy checked his traps, he came across the frozen body of a man who had left camp three weeks earlier. He brought him back on his sled, and put him in the shed with those waiting to be buried in the spring.

Bellamy buried those bodies in March.

+++

Early April found Bellamy in the garden when he wasn’t foraging. The sun was hot, the breeze was cold, and the earth was a filthy fucking field of mud. Pops of color dotted flowering trees in the distant forest, breaking up the late-winter palette of gray-brown-blue. Bellamy had tasked himself with building an espalier-style trellis system so they could use some of the Arkadia fence line for fruit trees. Anything, _anything_ , to start planning for a future where forty people didn’t die every winter.

He only had a few shirts left and he didn’t feel being careful, so he tugged off his shirt and laid it over the wheelbarrow handles. The sun warmed his muscles, and sweat trickled down his back.

 _It would have to be a patchwork of fencing_ , he was thinking to himself, considering the leftover lumber and chicken-wire that he had, when the skin on the back of his neck prickled.

He turned to see Clarke staring at him the door, fifty feet away. She didn’t notice that he had noticed her first, and the look she was giving him—he knew that look in the pit of his stomach, even if he didn’t want to believe it. Aching and sad but also full of want. She licked her lips, just a little, then nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him looking at her.

For a moment she stood still in the doorway, caught between acknowledging him or going back inside. But Clarke Griffin was brave, and as she walked over to him fear and anxiety, desire and anger, tangled in his chest.

“Hi,” she said when she got within three feet of him. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at his pile of supplies. “What are you doing?”

“Building a trellis.”

Clarke nodded. “For what?”

“Fruit trees.” Fuck, it felt like lead was falling from his mouth. But he couldn’t seem to just _talk_.

“What kind of fruit trees?”

He cleared his throat. “Um, I was thinking apples. Or pears.”

“I’ve been reading about gardening and stuff,” she said, her voice suddenly shy as she bent down and looked over his materials. “We’ll need to get saplings somewhere.”

A moment expanded between them. She was offering a hand; she was offering a we.

“I uh…I was hoping that maybe we could trade. Maybe Kane…,” he licked his lips, “or you…would know someone.”

Clarke stood and brushed her hands off on her thighs. “Maybe. I’ll see what I can do.”

He nodded. They both wanted him to say something, and all he could come up with was a, “Thanks.”

One morning, a week later, he opened his door to find eight bare-root apple saplings in a bucket, ends stuck in mud.

There was a note attached to the handle:

_I miss you. Clarke._

+++

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the thrashing storm moved over them, leaving pouring rain in its place.

Bellamy had long ago shut off the flashlight to sit with his thoughts. He took in Clarke’s sleeping form not even four feet from him. She breathed deeply, her face peaceful and sweet.

After so many hard years, Bellamy recognized a gift when it was given to him. Gifts on Earth weren’t ostentatious things that he had read about in novels. No, a gift on Earth was eight apple tree saplings promising food for their people. Or a night completely alone, in shelter, to reconcile what was between them.

He thought about calling her name then, waking her up. It seemed urgent, suddenly, to talk to her, to make it right, to begin _now_.

But no. She had only been napping for an hour, at most, and he was covered in filth. If anything happened tonight—and at that thought desire shot through down his spine and straight to his balls—well.

There was just enough light to see where Clarke had put the med kit. He found the pouch where she kept small portions of bar soap, cut into single-use chunks. Taking one, and the shirt they used earlier, he silently walked to the door leading out to the back porch. He eased open the door just enough to sip through, not wanting to risk the hinges squeaking and took off a boot to prop it open, just in case.

Rain fell in sheets off the roof. _Probably better pressure than showers at the Ark_. And probably warmer, too.

Bellamy shucked his other boot, and then all of his clothes in quick, efficient measure, tossing them under the spill. He broke off a chunk of soap and scrubbed them down. Rinse, twist, rinse, twist, until the water ran clear. Warm mist from the impact of the rain drops on the wood plank fogged around him, and by the time he actually stood under the water sluicing off the eaves he was soaked.

He lathered his hair, his face and neck and pits. The dirt and blood and salt slid off like mud. It felt luxurious to stand under warm-ish water without having to worry about the Ark’s shitty temperature regulator. He lathered again just to enjoy that he could.

“Bellamy.” Clarke spoke his name at the same moment his intuition shivered to let him know he was being watched.

Clarke was standing in the doorway, right leg lifted flamingo-style, arm bracing her weight on the door jamb.

His mouth went dry, and he fully expected that clogged, tight feeling to crawl upwards to constrict his words.

But it didn’t.

Instead he just saw Clarke watching him, eyes wide as she took him in, bottom lip caught on her teeth. He saw a woman looking at him soft, hot, and wanting.

“Did you want a turn?” His voice was busted just by looking at her, but he didn't care. She knew that he wanted her.

Clarke’s eyes flitted over him, just once, and yeah—he was standing there naked as a jaybird, and his dick is getting hard—and well, too late now.

She started to move over to him. He stepped forward to help her, out of the water, but she put up a hand to stop him.

“Clarke—”

“No. Let me.”

He raised an eyebrow—for some reason her hobbling over to him by herself seemed important to her. So he watched as she made halting, limping progress.

Bellamy clenched his fists into his sides to stop himself from reaching out to her.

Clarke noticed and laughed, breathless.

“Bellamy,” she said, and his name on her lips was so sweet, soulful, that he felt his heart breaking in the way it only broke for her.

It took a good thirty seconds, but she finally stood in front of him. Her hair was ragged, and despite her best efforts with the t-shirt earlier dirt still streaked her face, her chest.

Her chest rose and fell with exertion, and she let out a shaky breath. And again, because Clarke Griffin was transparent as fuck to him, he could see the wheels turning fast in her mind. She was considering something, prodding it, unsure, then more certain, than totally sure.

Then when she looked at him, her face was clear, decided.

“Bellamy, I love you.”

“I—what?”

She smiled, that little Clarke smile that he knew was only his, and said it again. “I love you. I have…for a long time.”

“Clarke,” he couldn’t keep the desperate thread out of his voice even if he tried. How much he’s wanted her to say those words kind of sickened him, frightened him almost.

“I love you,” she said again, more firmly this time. “And…I’m not leaving you again. Ever.” She paused, considered. “Not even if you don’t—if you don’t love me back. I mean, I’m not an idiot, I know you care for me, but…I’m staying, you know? With us, with our family,” and her voice broke on the word _family_. “But I need you to know. That’s what I’m feeling. That I love you…I love you more than just…More than just a friend.”

“Oh, Clarke.” Her name came out on a sigh, and she looked up at him a bit hopeful, a bit fearful. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into him, one arm holding her around the waist as the other gripped her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “About this past year—I—”

She laid her cheek on his chest and he could feel tears slipping between their skin. “I’m sorry, too. I…I loved you. That night in the cave…”

His arms tightened around her.

Clarke let out a shuddering breath. “I wanted to tell you then, but if I didn’t come back—or if you didn’t come back—I couldn’t do it again, Bellamy. I just couldn’t. Then when I did…when I lived…and then you did…” Clarke paused again. “I—I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to love you and not be afraid. And I didn’t want to do that to us.”

Bellamy thought back to the fights, the defensiveness, the wide-orbit they had given each other. He had been afraid, too, a fear that had given way to anger and then—in the winter—to bitterness.

Standing here, together, after almost losing her _again_ …with her in his arms….

Bellamy put his cheek on the top of head and breathed. And he let the fear, the anger, the bitterness go.

He knew that, especially once they got back to Arkadia, they would have shit to deal with. Arkadia was a haunted place, burdened by a past that never seemed to be finished for them. But they could have tonight, free of that.

Clarke snuffled into his chest then, breaking the fragile silence between them. He felt her distancing a bit, because he hadn't answered her.

“I got snot all over you,” she said suddenly, pitifully.

Bellamy snorted. “Always with the smooth talk, Griffin.”

She grinned against his chest.

In that moment, Bellamy realized that that this? This was everything he wanted in his life, ever since he was a kid and he daydreamed about what having a person would be like. Ever since that night under the tree he wanted that person to be Clarke. The fact that they had survived these past two years, that they had fought, that they had never given up, and now they were standing under a porch in the rain together—

Bellamy pulled back just enough so that Clarke could look at him. He wiped the remaining tears off her face with his thumb, stroked down her cheek. Her skin was soft in his hands, flushed by crying, wet with tears.

“I love you too, Clarke.” The words come out easy, just as it is easy to love her. And god, he loved her so much.

Bellamy leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. Her hands caught on his chest for balance, and shivers licked down his spine.

They stood still, for one moment, their lips unmoving, breath and time and heartbeats suspended. Bellamy’s mind adjusted to the reality where he is kissing her; the reality where everything had changed.

+++

Clarke pulled away first, gently, keeping her face close to his. “I want you, Bellamy.”

And fuck, a hot bolt of lust lanced down his body. He nodded, leaned in, brushing his mouth on hers. Her lips were soft and full against his, and honestly, he could do this forever, but he can already feel himself hardening against her thigh.

“But I want to shower first.”

The rain still poured over the eaves, and the ground around the raised porch was filled with water. A line of trees and brush stood about twenty feet away from their cabin. It’s as private as an outside shower could be. Not that Bellamy cared when it was just him—communal showers on the Ark and road conditions being what they were—but for him and Clarke? He took one last glance around and yeah—in the dark, in the rain, away from the others—they were okay.

“I think we can arrange that.”

“Help me get undressed?”

Bellamy grinned at that and blushed a little too. Clarke moved away from him a bit and just looked at him, hot and sweet and such a challenge that it almost made him bashful.

Almost.

But he’s never been cowed by Clarke, not now, and not ever.

“Oh, that’s the way it is, Griffin?” He pitched his voice extra-low, threaded it with desire.

Her eyes widened, darkened.

“That’s the way it is, Blake.” She lifted her arms over her head.

Bellamy sucked in a breath, and slid one hand up from her waist, lightly on her stomach, to the the swell of breasts under the old neoprene Ark bras. He fluttered his fingers over where her nipple was. She sucked in, pushed into his fingers.

Bellamy kept kissing her, even when he hooks his fingers under the band of her bra, pulling it up and over her head, separating them for just an instant. Her breasts bounced once, and he swiped a thumb over her pretty pink nipples, tight with desire. “Fuck, Clarke. You have the best tits I’ve ever seen.”

She laughed, startled and delighted and rich. “Good to know.”

“No seriously.” He palmed one, then the other. “I remember watching you at the dropship, and you were wearing that low cut shirt? I dreamed about your breasts.” He lightly rolled a nipple between her fingers. “Still do.”

Clarke blushed and ducked her head. He bent his knees in front of her, rolling down her underwear and carefully sliding it down her leg. The bandage around her thigh was still in good shape, and he laid a chaste, soft kiss to the side of her injury. She stepped out of the underwear carefully, and he tossed them into a pile next to his clothes. He reached out and helped pivot her under the water coming off the roof, but close enough to a post that she could lean back if she needed to.

The atmosphere thickened, not helped by the fact that Clarke moaned, “Oh god, it feels good,” as soon as the water hit her. She pushed her head back and tilted her face. “Just to be clean. Holy shit.”

“Mmm,” Bellamy murmured in agreement, but he couldn’t really talk because Clarke was wet, and naked, and literally about three inches from him. And they were about to have sex. _Focus, Blake. You have time._ Bellamy breathed out, steadied himself. They had arrived at the cabins in the later afternoon, and it had only been four hours at most. They still had all night.

“Here, let me,” he offered, taking the soap from her palm and moving to her back. He lathered her hair, massaging her scalp. Clarke leaned into his hands, moving her head to where he increased pressure. When he finished with her hair he moved down her neck and shoulders. Her back escaped most of the damage from the fall—her stomach was where the worst of it was. So he massaged down her back, getting used to the feel of Clarke’s body and his hands working together. It’s a tactical, fact finding mission. The first foray into seeing what she liked.

Turned out she liked it all, which didn’t surprise him. She was just as physical as he was with the people she loves.

Clarke moaned and pressed into his hands, shivering when he hit the junction of her neck and back. “Oh my god, Bellamy, that feels so good.”

“Glad to help.” He stepped around to her front. She smiled at him, warm and lazy.

Then he started soaping down her chest, tweaking her nipples just a bit as he moved down because frankly—he couldn’t help himself. He’s tempted to stop, right there, suck her nipples into her mouth until she squirmed.

But he didn't. Not yet.

Tension pulled in his lower belly, like his hips were connected to his dick to his balls in this pleasant heat-ache.

Bellamy lathered soap down her stomach. She hissed when it ran over her scrapes and contact-burns from where she slid/dragged herself on the rocks. Just then she wobbles a bit in his hands.

“Lean against the post and rest your leg,” he said, sliding his hands slowly into the dip of her waist, over the curve of her ass.

“Bossy,” she said, tugging his hair.

He didn’t deny it, just knelt in front of her and placed kisses on the scrapes. Her hands delved into his wet curls, nails scraping against his scalp as she used his head and the post to steady her.

Blood and dirt washed away under the running water. The storm was letting up, the runoff slowing, but it still got the job done. Besides, the slower pace gave him a chance to touch her, keep his hands on her.

Soon, though, all of Clarke was clean. Except.

Bellamy swiped soap over the wet curls at the juncture of her thighs, sliding his fingers gently—just over the top, not in—but her hips still automatically flexed down on him. She gasped his name above him, fingers flexing into his hair. He leaned in, nosing her gently, just to smell her: soap and salty and sweet. All he wants is to part her thighs and bury his face in her cunt.

Instead he placed a soft kiss on her thigh and stands.

Clarke looked at him with a question in her eyes, but he’s beyond real speech. Looking at her, face lit with desire, the last bit of control Bellamy had snapped.

Because whatever he felt, she was feeling it too, and their lips met in a fierce, biting kiss. He picked her up in one swoop and stalked to the porch door, kicking it open with the back of his heel.

Clarke giggled at first, then just took to biting and sucking at his chest and neck and goddamn.

“I’m going to drop you if you keep doing that.”

“Mmm, I think you're fine,” she said into his neck as she lapped at the remaining rain drops there. “Plus you taste so good.”

“Oh yeah? What do I taste like?” He was talking to her to keep some sort of mental distance as he put her gently on the mat, then stood back up to retrieve a couple of flashlights. His dick was so hard it throbbed, and Clarke’s eyes held the most naked lust on her face.

Before he could even see what she was doing, she pivoted from her ass onto her knees—with a hiss of pain for her leg, but dauntless nonetheless—and sucked him into her mouth.

“Clarke! Fuck!” He stuttered out, hands immediately wrenching into her hair, holding her still. And she fucking _grinned_ around his cock, and he let out a combo groan-laugh.

“Salty,” she kissed the head. She looked up at him, keeping his gaze as she pushed her lips over the head, bringing her hand to him and stroking. She sucked harder this time, and came off with a _pop_. “Tangy.”

Bellamy dropped his gaze to her, and she just grinned at him, totally pleased with herself. It occurred to him that this was how it was going to be between them—good. Maybe not always easy, lord knew they could fight, and they lived in a hellscape, but between them? They would be good. They would be _right_.

She looked at him, saw him pause. That little crease appeared between her brows. “What’s up?”

Bellamy knelt and kissed her, open-mouthed. Clarke gave just as good, hand gripping his neck and pulling him closer.

“Before,” she moved her lips to his jaw, “we,” kiss,” start,” sucked below his ear and he moaned, “is there anything,” she kissed him just where she sucked, “we should talk about? Sex or body stuff?”

He found her mouth and tongues into her as a response. “No. Not me. You?”

“No,” she said in between placing wet kisses along his neck, then dropping to his collarbone. He shivered, brought his hand to her hair. But then she shortened her kisses, looked up at him. “But I need…I think I’m going to need to lie down.”

“Your leg?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was breathless when she said it. “And I need to change the bandage real quick.”

Bellamy nodded and kissed her forehead, absurdly touched that Clarke admitted a weakness to him. It’s not entirely new to them, but it felt more intimate. She sat on her mat and quickly dried the stitches, hands moving efficiently as she wrapped fresh cloth strips around her thigh. When she finished, she met his eyes but then flicked her gaze away—and he could tell that she’s feeling a bit disappointed their first time won’t be some version of perfect. He knew it was hard for her to accept it when things aren’t just the way she imagined them to be.

So, clearly, he had a mission now. Life was never going to be perfect for them. But they’d make it work—they _always_ made it work. It’s what they did.

“Lay back, babe. Let me take care of you.”

What was uncertainty sparked into lust and teasing again. “Take care of me, huh? How are you going to do that?”

“Mouthy,” he grinned. Her mouth quirked into a one-sided smile as she lowered herself on her bedroll, using her elbows to prop herself up.

“First,” he lightly pushed her thighs apart and lowered himself between her legs. He kissed her, loose and full, nudging her chin back with his nose, exposing her throat. “I’m going to kiss you all the way to your cunt.”

Bellamy made his way up her jaw, biting lightly at her ear, grazing his teeth at just that spot that merged behind-the-ear and her scalp. Gooseflesh rippled down her neck and her nipples tightened against his chest.

“Goddamn.” She was so response to every tough. No matter where his mouth and fingers moved, her skin lit to it.

“What next?” Bellamy could tell she was trying to maintain control her voice, and smirked a bit that she wasn’t quite succeeding.

“You like dirty talk, Clarke?”

“I’ve been known to appreciate a good narration.”

He laughed into her chest and while she giggled, sucked one nipple into his mouth, hard.

“Bellamy!” she jerked under him, surprised. “Fuck!” His other hand cupped her other breast, dragging his thumb over the nipple.

“Harder,” she gasped at him, pressing into his mouth. He increased the suction, taking more of her into his mouth, tweaking and pulling the other nipple harder in his fingers. Her hips rocked against his stomach, and god, she’s already wet. Bellamy wanted nothing more than to make Clarke fall apart around his tongue, his fingers. To show her that no matter what they would be all right.

Bellamy slid down her body, kissing as he went. He pushed her uninjured leg up, exposing her to him. Clarke grabbed the knee and opened it further, moved the other leg as far as she can manage.

He looped one arm around her hip, his long fingers reach just over the top to her clit. He pressed his tongue against her, feeling the geography of her—the little nub of clit, her soft and smooth labia. Her hips flexed into his mouth as he sucked lightly, then harder.

Bellamy backed away from her clit, licking around her labia, using his tongue to draw moisture from her entrance all over her cunt. And she fucking loved that, mewling at him when he brushed his fingertips over her clit, moving his chin just so that his stubble rasped at her.

“Oh, fuck, Bellamy!” Fingers gripped his hair as she arched her hips against his face, seeking any sort of friction. He sucked harder, thrust his fingers in faster, but then she just held his face to her cunt and stroked over him.

Just as she began quaking over his fingers, he added another and curled them right into her.

“Bellamy!” Clarke’s back arched off the floor as she came over him. He kept the pressure against her clit, thrusting his fingers in again. She shuddered a second time before going still, and he slowly pulled out his fingers, softly kissing her thighs.

“Come here,” she said, voice warm and thick as the cabin air around them. Bellamy rose on his knees and lowered himself gently over her.

Sweat shone on her skin in the dim light. Bellamy remembered how she looked at the stream, how she looked in Delphi with the starlight on her, and hot embers sparked down his skin.

Clarke tilted her head up to kiss him, but stopped short. “What are you thinking?”

He leaned down, captured her lips with his. “Just about the times I wanted to kiss you but couldn’t.”

Her cheeks turned rosy. “Yeah? Since when?”

“Probably since you sassed me at the dropship.”

Clarke threw her head back and laughed. “For me it was your arms.” She trailed her fingers down his torso. “And this,” she hummed appreciatively, her fingers tracing the V-ridge on his hips. “And your guns. You always had a gun. It was convenient.”

He grinned at her. “I guess some things don’t change.”

Clarke smiled, full and bright, then pushed herself up a little to kiss along his jaw. Apparently, she decided that wasn’t enough, and boosted herself up onto her palms, keeping her lips on him the whole time.

“Clarke, your—”

She hissed at him while her mouth was still on his, and his eyebrows raised. “I don’t give a fuck about my leg. I want you inside me.”

He had no idea his cock could get harder, but suddenly it was so achy and swollen he could feel his skin pulling on his lower belly, his thighs. 

Clarke slid her hand into her cunt, then brought her wetness to his cock and started to stroke him with it.

The sound that came out of his mouth was unreal, even to him. “Goddamn, Clarke. I—”

She tightened her grip, just a bit, going from base to tip, over the top and back down and _fucking hell_ , he thrust into her hand.

Her eyes snapped close just to think. “Clarke—there are ways—I don’t want to hurt your leg--”

She mouthed at his chin, his jaw, knew what he was thinking. “I want our first time face to face, okay? Call me a romantic.”

“You’re going to have to let go of my dick for just a second, then.”

Clarke pouted, all pretty-like, and it made him laugh. He pulled her into his lap, then scooted them both back so he could brace his back on the wall. He sat up straight, bending his knees just a little so she could support herself if she needed to.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and rode over him, soaking him thoroughly. She was so fucking wet.

Clarke reached down between them, took his cock in her hand again and stroked. “You ready?”

Her voice was ragged with anticipation, with lust.

Bellamy crushed her mouth against him. “Yeah,” he said. And then, because he knew it would drive her wild: “Fuck me, Clarke.”

It did.

Clarke’s eyes went from lusty to feral. She positioned herself over his tip and started to slowly sink over him.

The feeling startled both of them. They paused, eyes locked. Her slick, tight cunt clenched over him, making it hard for him to breathe. He stayed as still as he could, letting her adjust, but never taking his eyes off her face.

“Bellamy,” Clarke moaned. Slow, small movements at first, just rocking down on him, which he met with gentle thrusts of his own. Until—fuck—his cock filled her completely, bumping up against her top.

Clarke gasped and wiggled, trying to accommodate him.

Then she moved. Small, grinding movements at first, seeing how far down she could get. Her head tilted back, her eyes half-open but still keeping contact with him. She moved faster as they find their rhythm, his fingers gripping her hips to help steady her; her grinding down, seeking as much of him as she could take.

Bellamy sucked one nipple into his mouth, laving at the flesh, and her hands gripped the back of his head and held him there.

“Yes, fuck, Bellamy.”

“You like that, Clarke? You like my mouth on your tits?”

“Yes!”

Bellamy continued swirling his tongue around her, nipping and pulling and biting, and she matched the rhythm of his mouth with her hips. Their flesh melded together, stuck by sweat, both of them locked together by his arms around her.

He looked down at them; watched her ride him and himself thrust into her. Her come glinted on his dick as she rose, then rocked back down over him with a groan.

Clarke’s movements became faster, but at the same time he could tell she was flagging in stamina.

“Hold on, babe.” He held her close, then gently rolled her on to her back, making the movement as smooth as possible.. She gripped her knee again, pulling it back, and he entered her in one hard movement.

“Fuck, Bellamy!” Clarke cried, but then raised her hips to meet his thrusts. Bellamy sat back on his knees, bringing his thumb to start circling her clit. He watched himself thrust into her, but he can’t last for long like that. He wanted their skin to touch, to feel her heat, her sweat, her breath.

Clarke’s arms tangled around his neck as he leaned over her, her nails scratched his back, gripped his ass to encourage to go harder, harder, _harder_.

Her pants fill the air and then suddenly she arched her back, hands trying to find purchase on the ground and came, mouth open in a silent scream. Wave after wave shuddered over her, and Bellamy could only manage a few more thrusts before he joined her.

+++

Bellamy watched as light the color of mother-of-pearl began to lighten the world outside.

For a moment, he was taken back to the Ark, to that year alone. Waking up in silence in a dark room. No sounds of breathing from his Mom, no rustle from Octavia. Every night that he shut the door on the outside, the room settled into a tomb-like emptiness, and he pulled his shame and his fury and his silence over him like a shroud.

But now.

Clarke slept next to him, her head pillowed on his chest. He ran his hand over her hair, down her back, just because he can. He traced the thick ridge of scar tissue along the back of Clarke’s neck, remembered that she chose to come back from the City of Light. That even though it took them a year to figure their shit out, they did.

She tried to adjust in her sleep, but instead ended up blinking blearily in the still-dark room. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know. Go back to sleep.”

Clarke looked up at him, smiled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because we have three more days—”

“Exactly. When’s the next time we’ll get to fuck without neighbors?”

He raised his eyebrow. “Good point.”

Bellamy rolled her onto her good leg, scooted her ass back into his hips, and gently pulled her injured leg back and over him. Her hand dropped to her cunt, and she started circling her clit with her fingers. He slid his hand between her thighs, gently pressing a finger into her, working in concert with her hand until she started pressing back into his erection.

“Bellamy,” she whined, and it’s the prettiest sound he’d ever heard. He dropped his hips down a little, teased the tip against her wet entrance, drawing out as much of her arousal as he could.

Clarke whined again, this time her voice took on a pleading note. She was grinding on her own palm now, fingers playing with her folds, and goddamn. Bellamy pushed into her at the same time he pulled her hips even further back into him. She sighed as he went deeper, a sound so full of desire-happiness that it almost unraveled him on the spot.

“You feel so good in me,” she panted minutes later. The sound of her ass smacking into him filled the early morning air, and he pulled her back on his cock faster and faster. She opened up her top arm and hooked it around his neck.

“I’m going to come, I’m going to come, I’m going to come!”

At the moment she bent her back in surrender, Bellamy wrapped his arms around her, snapping his hips against her. His own orgasm sucked him briefly into darkness, then exploded in his body, through him into her.

He held Clarke to him as golden light seeped in the window. Her breathing was gaspy, still. He dragged his lips down her neck, her shoulders. “You okay?”

Clarke twisted around to look at him, her eyes a brilliant cobalt in the morning light. “Bellamy,” and her voice was so tender.

He helped her roll full onto her back, but he stayed propped up on his side to look at her. They were silent—just looking at each other. They knew they’d have to get up in a few minutes to start packing, and it’s three more days at least until they get to Arkadia. And then it was…well, then it’s life back in Arkadia.

“We have matching scars,” Clarke said abruptly. Her fingers trace along the silvery tissue on his thigh, like his did on her neck last night. “Same spot. Same leg.” She grinned at him. “What a cliché.”

“There are easier ways to tell me you want to bone than falling off a cliff, Griffin.” He kissed her forehead.

“You ass.” Clarke swatted his stomach. “Always making it about you.”

They kissed for as long as they could, let their hands roam and just feel each other for once.

But it couldn’t last.

“Hey! Bellamy! Clarke!” Harper’s voice rang out across the courtyard. “Miller says we have to leave in ten!”

Bellamy groaned. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Clarke sighed. “Fuck.”

Fifteen minutes later—and one more orgasm for Clarke, biting her lip and vibrating in silence while he finger fucked her—they were outside. Clarke leaned into Bellamy’s shoulder, yawning. He slung his arm around her, not really ready to let go yet.

“Are we going to tell them?” Clarke asked as they watched Monty approach from across the courtyard.

“I think the cat’s out of the bag, babe. Don’t be embarrassed, but you look well fucked.”

She blushed, just in time for Monty to step on the porch.

“Well, hello there.” Monty wouldn’t tease them, but his mouth quirked into a smile. “Miller found Crane this morning. She was hiding out in the trees.”

Clarke let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I would have hated for her to be hurt.”

“Nope, she’s fine. Both of them fed and saddled,” Monty’s gaze slid between the two of them. “You guys ready? We’re set to make it twelve miles today. Figured we’d keep expectations low because of conditions.”

“Good plan.” Bellamy tucked Clarke into him for a quick forehead kiss. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

+++

It was late on the fourth night when they made it to the gates of Arkadia. The last several miles had been in the dark, but they all knew the surrounding terrain so well and there was that drive to just get the fuck there.

Miller had radioed ahead once they got into range, and the gates creaked open at their approach. Bellamy saw Kane and Abby waiting in the herb garden outside the Hangar, Rae’s girlfriend pacing next to them.

As soon as they came to a stop, Clarke slid off of Sigrun and into Bellamy’s arms, still unsteady but better. They were both covered in road dust, mouths cottony with it, stomachs growling for a real meal.

Bellamy could see that people wanted to approach—the Council would expect a full report, immediately, and Kane would want the maps at the crack of dawn—but Bellamy knew that back in Arkadia, they had to watch out for each other, first.

He set her down, gently, but kept his mouth next to her ear. “We don’t have to do this. We can go back to my room, shower and sleep. Raven would hook us up from the kitchens.”

Bellamy pulled back a bit so he could see her eyes when she answered.

Her gaze darted briefly behind him, to Kane and Abby and various other Council members. They’d be excited to learn about Delphi, about the new trade opportunities and whatever they found out about the terrain. They both knew that. But.

“No,” Clarke said finally. “They can wait. Let’s say hi to Mom and Kane…then…what size is your bed?”

He grinned. “Queen. I got a couple bunk.”

“Bastard. I have a single.”

“I guess you’re staying over, then.”

“Guess so.” Her hand found his and squeezed, just as Kane and Abby approached. Abby’s gaze took in their hands and found Bellamy’s eyes. There wasn’t a question there, like he thought there might be, just a small smile.

“We’re just saying hi,” Clarke said. “And then going to bed.”

Kane nodded slowly. “The Council is excited—”

“They can wait, Marcus,” Abby put a hand on his chest. She nodded to Bellamy and Clarke. “Let them rest. Delphi can wait.”

“Fine,” Kane said. “But at o-eight-hundred—”

“We’ll be there,” Bellamy said. He loved Kane, but that man and his maps.

They walked through the halls together, hand and hand, and while he had no illusions about what Arkadia would be like…something had wished that in the three weeks they were gone it would have magically changed. That people would stop parting as he walked by them. That he didn’t see his bad decisions around every corner.

_Clarke being next next to you will help. You just have to get used to being back here._

An hour later, showered and fed by Raven’s kitchen hookup, they fell into Bellamy’s bed. Clarke curled into his side, pillowed her face on his chest and hooked her leg around his waist.

“Do you want to fool around?” she asked, mouth open wide in a yawn.

He brushed a kiss on the top of her head. “I don’t have a sleep kink.”

Clarke bit his chest playfully. “Nerd.”

“Go to sleep, Clarke. We have the day off after the Council meeting.”

“Mmm.” Her voice was already distant. “Whatever shall we do.”

He reached behind him and switched off the lamp. The room fell into cool, still darkness.

But Clarke wasn’t asleep. He could tell.

“Clarke?”

“Yeah?”

Definitely not asleep.

“I can practically feel your brain going,” he tugged her hair so she lifted her face to him. “What’s up?”

“I want to leave Arkadia,” she blurted out, then bit her lip.

His heart thumped in his chest. “What?”

“Oh! No, no, no, Bellamy,” she gripped him so tight it almost hurt, but he was glad for it. “With you. _With you_. With people, our people.”

Bellamy’s breath shuddered out of him. “Fuck, Clarke.”

“I know. I know, I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.” She rose and slid over his hips, bracketing them with her legs. “You know that right? Tell me you know that.”

“Yeah. Yes.”

Clarke put her hand on his chest, and he reached out his to stroke her thigh. There was only a light bandage now, and though she still limped in the evening, she said it was better.

“Where would we go?”

“While I was in Polis—” She paused and got what Bellamy called the _Polis-face_ on.

“Clarke,” he said gently. “It's okay. We can talk about it.”

She smiled, tiny. “Yeah. Okay. So. While I was in Polis, I met clan leaders there. There were a few who mentioned that they would take people in. And after ALIE…well, I’m not sure how many people would be left to begin with…It would take some work. A trip or two. But maybe we could leave next spring.”

Clarke chewed on her lip and looked at him. “What do you think?”

Even just considering it made Bellamy feel lighter, freer. Part of him just desperately wanted to start over, move on, with Clarke. And their family, if they would come. Leaving Arkadia might be hard, but staying...seemed more and more impossible. 

Bellamy nodded. “Yes,” he lifted himself up and she met in the middle to kiss him. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

She grinned against his mouth, then opened his lips with her tongue. His hands slid between her legs, fingers finding her underwear already wet. “Goddamn babe.”

It took only about fifteen seconds to roll her underwear off and push his boxers down, then she slid over his cock, taking him to the base. It was the first time since the cabin that it hadn’t been quick fingering or a hidden blow job.

“God, you’re so wet, Clarke.” He thrust into her as she rocked against him.

Clarke pressed against him; he fingered her, ran his other hand up and down her sides. She brought her hands up to her breasts and stroked them, pinching the nipples.

At some point, as middle of the night fucks sometimes do, it turned desperate. Clarke leaned over, her hair falling over them, their breath mingling together as their bodies slapped at each other. Sweat dripped from her forehead to his, and her stomach, tits, mouth were all over him.

Bellamy fucked into her, making sure to twist his hips just a little at the top of each motion just as she ground against him. He bit at her breasts, latching on like she liked, sucking it hard enough to make her gasp. Just as he felt her begin to quiver, he held her down, rubbing her hips against him.

“Oh, fuck, Bellamy!” Clarke yelled into his neck as she came, and the sound of her wrecked voice in his pillow was it for him. He released into her, hips arching as he locked his arms around her. They stayed like that until their breath had calmed, kissing and stroking until he slipped out of her.

Ten minutes later, cleaned up, they slid back in bed, Clarke sprawled over Bellamy once again.

The room stilled between them, but now it wasn’t silent. Bellamy could hear Clarke’s breath, the sheets sliding over her skin when she moved.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, her voice threaded through the night. “I love you, Bellamy.”

“I love you too, Clarke.”

“We’re going to be okay,” she whispered into his chest.

“Yeah. We are.” Bellamy kissed her forehead. “Now go to sleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was truly an act of co-creation, thank you so so much to @skikru for her beta reading & input.
> 
>  Title from Upward Over the Mountain by Iron & Wine  
> 


End file.
